Writers are a strange lot. They traffic in memory, imagination and experience – real or imagined, their own or someone else’s. As writer and teacher Ruth Steiner (Kandis Chappell) puts it, “All writers are rummagers at a tag sale, picking through the neighbor’s discards for material, whatever we can get our hands on.”

On this day, middle-aged writer and teacher Ruth awaits Lisa Morrison (Melanie Lora), a new young writer, coming for a tutoring session about her short story Eating Between Meals.

Collected Stories, Donald Margulies’ examination of writing, ethics and the limits of friendship, plays through Sunday, June 14, at South Coast Repertory Theatre, which commissioned the piece and premiered it in 1996. Martin Benson directs.

They get off to a rocky start. While Ruth is in the kitchen making tea, Lisa surveys Ruth’s bookshelf; selecting a book, she finds a letter from poet Delmore Schwartz inside. Lisa’s breathless question brings a stern rebuke from Ruth and a demand to put it back.

Lisa is fresh-faced, innocent, easily flustered and utterly starstruck. When Ruth tries to read her story, the nervous youngster talks compulsively. Eventually Ruth pronounces Lisa talented, Lisa becomes Ruth’s assistant and they begin to settle into a working relationship.

But the relationship begins to fray when Lisa’s first collection of stories is published and she is hailed as the voice of a generation. In a weak moment, Ruth, wistful about time and remembering when she was in Lisa’s position, tells the youngster about a long-ago affair with Schwartz. But when Lisa uses this as the basis for her first novel, Ruth explodes with anger at what she regards as Lisa’s betrayal.

“He’s mine, not yours,” she sputters. “I feel like I’ve been bugged. My dear young friend turned out to be a spy. A spy who sold my secrets.”

Lisa sees the use of Ruth’s story as a tribute: “I thought you’d feel ... pride ... satisfaction ... for having been a good teacher.”

There is no negotiating this difference, and the relationship ends in calumny, leaving the audience to debate the unanswered question: Who owns a story?

The inspiration for Collected Stories was a dispute between poet Stephen Spender and novelist David Leavitt, who used the poet’s memoir as the basis of his novel While England Sleeps. That argument landed in court, where Spender succeeded in getting Leavitt’s book suppressed.

Kandis Chappell originated the role of Ruth at South Coast Repertory Theatre in 1996. It moved to New York in 1997; that year the play received a Pulitzer Prize nomination.

Now, more than a decade later, Chappell inhabits the role like a favorite shirt. She ages visibly, gets crankier and angrier – and lonelier. Morrison allows us to watch young Lisa’s transformation from tentative, nervous hopeful to self-assured writer.

Kudos to Thomas Buderwitz for his terrific set, and to Mark Johnson for the wonderfully reminiscent old-style jazz in the sound design.

Collected Stories is about time, friendship, betrayal and this fickle taskmistress that is the writing muse. Margulies has fashioned a play with characters so familiar that we feel we’re observing real life. It’s a rare opportunity.

Collected Stories plays through Sunday, June 14, at South Coast Repertory Theatre in Costa Mesa. Shows Sunday, Tuesday and Wednesday at 7:30 p.m.; Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m.; matinees Saturday and Sunday at 2:30 p.m. For tickets, call 714-708-5555 or visit www.scr.org.